Cultural heritage: Save Libyan archaeology

29 Jan 2015 12:43 PM |
Anonymous

Libya is a hotspot for research into the human past. The Sahara, the largest hot desert in the world, was once green and hosted until a few thousand years ago the biggest freshwater lake on Earth1. Some depictions of crocodiles and cattle engraved and painted on the walls of rock shelters in the Sahara date back 9,000 years.

The desert is also a laboratory for investigating links between past climate changes and developments in human history2,3. These include the dispersal of modern humans across Africa about 130,000 years ago4, the oldest evidence5 of milking in Africa around 5200 bc and the establishment of the first Saharan state6 during the first millennium bc.